I'll be a guest panelist on the nationally-syndicated "Beyond the Beltway" radio program tonight from 6-8 p.m. central time. The Chicago affiliate is WLS AM (890); click here for other affiliated stations.

The other guests are Marty Geraghty and Tom Shaer, and the topics include Donald Rumsfeld's future, Rudy Guiliani's future, the plague of steroids in baseball and the worries some have that Christ is being taken out of Christmas.

Dame Posterity weeps in relief that this moment in broadcast history is preserved forever here.

Immediately following "BTB" on WLS, you can hear "Public Affairs" blogger Jeff Berkowitz on "Political Shootout," cranky host Tom Roeser's idea of a debate program in which he usually invites conservatives of various stripes to hash out their differences.

FRIDAY, DEC. 17, 2004

updated at 1 p.m.

ARE EARRINGS BLING?

By a 3 to 1 margin, click-poll voters said "no" to the question, "Aside from watches and wedding rings--Can you trust a man who wears jewelry?"

Judging from my e-mail, the negative response would have been even higher if I'd made an exception for earrings which on men, most often, are fairly subtle -- --- tiny hoops or modest studs.

Such accessories, it seems to me, fall well outside the pinkie-ring, ostentatious-necklace, jewel-encrusted badge idea that John Kass was getting at earlier this week in his column on Bernie Kerik.

In retrospect, a better way to word the question would have been, "Can you trust a man who wears gaudy jewelry?"

And I would include in that any wristwatch that costs more than $150. If your watch costs more than that, buddy, you're just showing off.

Final click poll results this week:

Aside from watches and wedding rings--Can you trust a man who wears jewelry?

Yes, 25%

No, 75%

(584 total responses)

Should it be illegal for stores to sell violent or sexually explicit video games to people under 18?

Yes, 64%

No, 36%

(4095 total responses)

How many times a month do you call your own cell phone number in order to find it?

I never do this, 66%

Once or twice, 26%

3 to 10 times, 7%

More than 10 times, 2 %

(555 total responses)

FREE TO A GOOD HOME, SPECIAL HIDDEN BONUS OFFER

Two readers have now sent me "Don't Think of an Elephant! -- Know your values and frame the debate. The essential guide for progressives," by George Lakoff.

I'm slipping this offer into the blog on Dec. 28 here while I'm on vacation to reward faithful browsers, if there are any.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

DEAR APPLICANT:

Mary Schmich today contemplates "how age whittles away at our habits and routines, at our tolerances and desires," and writes:

Will you ever again stay up all night? Not if you can help it. And staying awake all night is not the same as being awake all night.

The first is called fun. The second is called insomnia. The first is a perk of youth, the second a curse of later age.

I'm afraid this essay closes out any chance that RedEye will add Schmich to its stable of columnists.

AN IDEA, FREE TO A GOOD HOME

Ana Beatriz Cholo's front-page Tribune story Saturday about the trials, tribulations and anxieties of Chicago middle-school students and their parents as they try to get in to the city's elite, selective-enrollment high schools sounded very familiar themes.

The harsh realities of the competitive process begins for some as early as 6th grade. Preteens--already contending with acne, cliques and the vagaries of the opposite sex--suddenly find themselves facing pressures usually associated with college admissions.

We went through the process last year and found ourselves part of a network of frantic, fretting and sometimes confused parents who trade rumors and strategies and discuss fallback options.

I wished at the time that someone would write a book describing all the options in detail and outlining the application, testing and other evaluation processes. Such a demystifying, reassuring book, updated annually, would sell very well in the city.

Sidenote about Cholo's story: The boy whose huge, full-face picture dominated the top half of the front page that day – Ethan Kaplan – lives just down the street from us and is one of my son's very closest friends.

He also lives about half a block away from Chicago Board of Education spokesman Peter Cunningham.

Yet neither I nor Cunningham had anything to do with Cholo finding and interviewing the Kaplans.

QUESTIONS THREE, A FOLLOW UP

Earlier in the week I posed three questions :

Why do you use AOL? (to AOL users)

Would jurors have recommended the death penalty for Scott Peterson if he'd been a better actor?

Is Chicago now the most pathetic big-league sports town in America?

Regarding AOL: Answers tended to focus on these areas:

The message/chat areas of AOL, which are robust, easy-to-use and better policed than free-for-all message areas on the Web.

The parental controls, virus and Spam blocking features and other security and child-friendly measures.

The fast, intuitive e-mail program that's not Outlook-based.

I'm not a chatter or a habitué of message boards so I can't vouch for that feature, though it seems to me that free, Web-based communities are bound to offer interaction of similar quality soon if they don't already.

I haven't found AOL's security features particularly useful as my 14-year-old goes right around AOL, uses a Hotmail e-mail account and accesses the Internet directly through Firefox or Internet Explorer.

But I am a fan of the e-mail program. Though I wish they'd ask me for idea on how to tweak it when they next upgrade, I like the ease with which I can work off-line and I like the convenience of having had the same e-mail address for the last dozen years.

Does anyone else remember the early days of e-mail when Compuserve, Prodigy, AOL and the other services would only let you send e-mail to other people on their service?

And when such services were the only coherent spots on the wild, wooly World Wide Web, which someone once memorably described as "the world's largest library, only the books are all over the floor"?

Search engines, blogs and other developments changed all that, and it's still not clear to me that these gatekeeper companies can survive as for-pay content providers.

Regarding Scott Peterson: Very few readers responded to this query, to my surprise. Maybe because the answer is both obvious and somewhat disconcerting.

Yes, if Scott Peterson had gotten on the witness stand during his sentence hearing and blubbered like a baby during a remorseful confession to having murdered his wife and unborn son, jurors, judging by their comments, probably would have spared his life.

I didn't follow the Peterson case closely enough to have an opinion on the guilty verdict, though from the little I've read it seems plausible enough.

But consider this: The person who is least likely to blubber remorsefully and beg for mercy at sentencing is the person who is factually innocent.

Regarding Chicago teams: The consensus is yes, in recent years no town has put more hapless pro teams on the field, court and rink than Chicago. Jim McCarthy of Elmhurst came forward with this statistical analysis that proves it:

Of the ten cities with franchises in all four major sports, four have not experienced a championship since 1998 (Chicago, Philly, Atlanta, Minneapolis).

I don't think you can consider any city that has a championship, no matter how bad the other teams are (goodbye, Phoenix).

Next step is to compare how many times each city has had a team make the playoffs (max would be 20 5x4); Minneapolis gets eliminated here and so does Philly, as the Timberwolves and Flyers have made it every year. Throw in the Twins and Vikings success for Minneapolis, and the Eagles for Philly, and they go over ten appearances.

That leaves Atlanta and Chicago.

Neither team has had their NBA team make a playoff appearance in five years.

The Blackhawks edge the Thrashers in NHL playoff appearances 1-0, and the Falcons edge the Bears 2-1 in NFL.

The tiebreaker is baseball.

Despite Chicago having two teams to Atlanta's one, the Braves have made five playoff appearances to the Cubs/Sox two. So Atlanta has 7 of 20 playoff appearances (35%), Chicago 4 out of 25 (16%, with an extra baseball team).

Strictly on performance, it's a no-brainer, Chicago is the worst. I'm sure folks in Atlanta who are tired of the Braves 13 straight division titles with only one championship would disagree, along with those in Philly who have watched the Eagles lose three straight NFC title games, but Chicago is indeed the worst.

Case closed.

CYNICISM COMPETITION

Rich Miller's column this week is deeply cynical about why Gov. Rod Blagojevich chose a Naperville school to roll out his program to combat violent and sexually explicit video games:

If he had taken his road show to a financially distressed downstate or suburban school, parents might have asked what he planned to do about their school district's forced over reliance on property taxes because of the state's inadequate level of education funding.

Or maybe someone would have asked about all the political cronies and hacks he's installed at the newly revamped State Board of Education.

Or they could have asked him what he's doing about the Meth epidemic that's decimating downstate communities, or the state's rapidly disappearing industrial base.

Naperville, with its low crime rate, low unemployment and well-funded, highly rated schools, was most certainly a safe choice.

I can't top that, but I can wonder aloud why Patti Blagojevich was a solo guest last night for the newsmaker interview portion of WTTW-Ch. 11's "Chicago Tonight" that deal with the video-game proposal.

Normally segment host Phil Ponce has a disputatious panel to wrangle over the fine points of controversial proposals and a spokesman represents the top elected official who declines to enter the grubby scrum with the pundits and industry reps who disagree with him.

Was sending or offering up Patti Blagojevich -- who usually stays in the background, especially on controversial issues -- a way of assuring a gentle, one-on-one interview on the subject instead of the rollicking debate this proposal deserves?

She was well spoken, to be sure, but given that one of the key legal and legislative questions about the proposal is going to be its constitutionality, a member of the governor's legal team would have been the more logical choice.

Unless, of course, the Blagojevich administration is playing the political angles, something Patti Blagojevich directly denied in her interview.

(Special note from "Elbow Roomer" over on the message board: "If there is anyone out there who knows the guv personally, can you suggest to him to get a makeover on his 'do? He looks like a refugee from a 1970's Smurf cartoon.")

SOME BOOKS WILL HAVE ALREADY BEEN CLAIMED EVEN THOUGH THEY ARE NOT YET LABELED AS CLAIMED.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

Dan Curry, former spokesman for and political adviser to ex-Ill. Atty. Gen Jim Ryan --
Jim Ryan led the charge to convince six or seven national retail chains, including Wal-Mart, Circuit City and Sears, to stop selling M-rated video games to minors.

His administration ran a sting to prove stores were ignoring the rating code and then convinced US Senators from Richard Durbin to Joseph Lieberman to John Ashcroft, to support his call for a voluntary ban.

The pressure led to the chains' decisions to put in place register prompts to card minors when M-rated games were being purchased. So, presumably, the stores are already preventing kids from buying M-rated games.

When almost every newspaper in Illinois endorsed Jim Ryan for governor over Blagojevich in 2002, many of them cited Ryan's effectiveness on violent videos. He rejected the legislative approach because he thought the public pressure approach would be more effective.

He probably would have gotten more national press with legislation, but wouldn't have gotten the results he did.

Jennifer Granholm, then AG of Michigan, followed Ryan's exact blueprint, including the stings, and did a few press conferences. She never revealed that she borrowed our idea down to the last detail.

This certainly seems like the sensible approach. The governor's approach seems destined to lead to endless hairsplitting by lawmakers, police, prosecutors and judges about which sorts of cartoon figures and what sorts of animated mayhem, nudity and sexual behavior falls outside the law.

Your honor! Despite his name, Pac Man is clearly not a man, and the fact that he wears no clothing does not suggest lasciviousness. And as for the prosecution's claim that his consumption of his foes constitutes unwholesome cannibalism, I can only refer you to People v. Mario Brothers , in which….

Joe R.-- This week's stunt brings me back to when I first heard the name Rod Blagojevich.

He was a newly elected congressman from Chicago, and his first stunt in
office was to hold a major issue press conference. His issue was the
government shipping napalm through Chicago on railroad cars without
informing the public.

He made his indignant face, with the usual backstop of
confused constituents, and exclaimed " we need to be notified as to
exactly when this dangerous material is to be shipped through Chicago."

Even
in pre-911 times, I thought that this was an incredibly stupid idea to
inform people how and when to blow up or hijack a shipment of napalm.

Not to mention the fact that, as the Global Security Web site explains, "Napalm is less flammable than gasoline and therefore less hazardous."

"Napalm is gasoline and benzene." Lee Saunders of the Navy's Weapons Support Facility told reporters who asked him about Blagojevich's blatant fear-mongering. "You drive around with gas and benzene in your car everyday. These kinds of materials are shipped routinely all over the country."

I haven't. And I've considered him a pandering lightweight ever since he cast that vote.

He also voted with the Republicans in Congress to support the judge in Alabama who wanted to post the Ten Commandments in his courtroom.

Ginnie F. When I was 12 I loved the Prince Purple Rain soundtrack. So I bought it, I had the money. My mother, on the other hand, did not want me to listen to Prince because she thought he was inappropriate for my age. So she threw out my Prince cassette (this was 1984, so I had cassettes). So I bought it again, it was only $10 and made sure I didn't listen to it when Mom was around. I still love listening to Prince! Do you get my point?

I think I get it – whatever the law doesn't make illegal for them, kids will get their hands on. But should we have fined retailers who sold Prince recordings to kids back in 1984, or in hindsight does that look like a silly idea?

Doug Nelson, Chicago -- Since you took the opportunity in your column today to be critical of Republican candidates who don't properly concede after losing an election, I must mention that Jesse Jackson, Jr. would not take my call in November, 2002 when I attempted to congratulate him for winning when I ran against him that year.

Frank F., Chicago – How does one go about running for the position of Mayor of Chicago? I looked into that today. I contacted the city and they told me to contact the Board of Elections office.

I reached the latter and asked how does one run for Mayor of Chicago, what are the requirements. I was told, "We don't know yet." "Well, there must be some general information you can provide me with." "We haven't made those decisions yet," they told me. "Please," I said, "can you provide me with an idea of what the requirements were for the last election for Mayor?" "No, it wouldn't make any difference."

Finally I got from them that the next election of the Mayor will be in February of 2007 and that in September of 2006 a candidate can start circulating petitions for their candidacy..

As a taxpaying citizen of Chicago for the past 25 years, I demand that the requirements for Mayor be clear and accessible and available to all via the internet or at least on paper so that anyone can go downtown and pick this information up or have it sent to them.

When I ask the Board of Elections about the requirements for running for Mayor of the City of Chicago, I believe they should be readily available to me and I should not have to ask questions to be provided with information that should have been provided to me when I asked, "What are the requirements for running for the mayor of Chicago?"

They were nicer to me when I called. When you have a column, bureaucrats tend to be a little more forthcoming, and in this case a woman told me that, while things could still change, the requirements last time were that a candidate had to gather 25,000 signatures, be a registered voter who has lived in Chicago for a year, not be in arrears on any city taxes and not a felon.

Helen G. -- I notice your recent link to the Lego Bible scenes on thebricktestament.com and wanted to express some concern about it.

Those who don't scrutinize the site carefully might be inclined to purchase the related books for little kids--especially given the glowing reviews on the site from so many mainstream and religious publications.

But take a look at the stories of Sodom and Gomorrah, or Cain and Abel--the first scene in the latter is helpfully entitled "The man had sex with his wife Eve," illustrated with a Lego depiction of that very act.

I personally would not want my 5-year-old daughter looking at that and asking me about it, and I'm neither religious nor terribly conservative.

Indeed, some of them are "edgy dioramas" as the San Jose Mercury put it, though it's difficult for Lego people to do anything truly objectionable given their very limited anatomies and ranges of motion.

The images created for the site and related books are used in Sunday schools, according to news reports. But whether the intent is reverent or irreverent isn't exactly clear, but as the Philadelphia Inquirer reported in December, 2003:

Insight into (the author and creator's) intent is found in his introduction, where the artist describes his epiphany at the local Taco Bell, when his burrito burst into flames and God's unmistakable voice told him "from this day forth you will illustrate for Me, My most holy of books, the Bible, completely in Lego."

In exploring this topic I found that if one looks diligently enough on the Web, one can actually find something billed as "Lego porn." You pervs out there can do you own searches.

Just don't tell Gov. Blagojevich about this, I beg of you. He'll propose prosecuting shopkeepers who sell Lego to minors.

Dan G. -- Allowing cell phones on planes is going to turn the cabin into a giant phone booth. I can see heated arguments and even fist fights arising because of this.

The main reason is there's nothing you can do to escape from your seat mates conversation, unless you have a set of ear plugs. Maybe that's the solution, free earplugs.

Amtrak had so many complaints from customers in Northeast, who were fed up with nonstop cell phone conversations, that they created a "quiet car" just for those who want to travel in silence.

I have no doubt that eventually this change is going to happen, if it's technologically feasible, because we're so tethered to our phones nowadays.

But the experience of flying, which used to be kind of exciting (remember the term "jet set"), is about to become torture.

Joshua T. No other city has anywhere near the number of combined years without a championship as Chicago (the Cubs are the longest streak in sports, the Sox number 2 and the Hawks the longest in hockey).

Even cities like Minnesota, which certainly are tortured, have had playoff teams multiple years running. Other cities like Seattle have recent success. Baltimore is a bit tortured, I guess, but nothing like Chicago.

We don't need the protection of a new law, with all the inevitable enforcement costs not to mention the costs of defending the Constitutionality of an effort that in other places has failed to pass constitutional muster.

Should games carry accurate labels advising the purchaser of the sex and violence content in them? Yes. My understanding is that they are, but I'm not a gamer.

Should retailers be strongly encouraged by government, civic and parent groups not to sell the most graphic games to children? Yes.

And at the same time, these groups should strongly encourage parents not to buy such games for their children, perhaps even with a publicly funded education campaign.

Fifty years ago it was comic books that excited the controlling passions of our public moralists determined to protect youth. Forty years ago it was movies. Twenty years ago it was song lyrics.

Legislations, cops and courts weren't the answer then, and they aren't the answer now.

We don't need the bureaucracy engaging in endless hair-splitting over what is and isn't a "depiction of death" or what does or doesn't "predominantly appeal to the prurient interest of the player" in what is, after all, a cartoon.

Blagojevich drags the 10 Commandments issue into his argument and uses it preemptively to attack the ACLU – an organization that generally enjoys support among his fellow Democrats.

Then he brings in a hypothetical 6-year-old and suggests that the ACLU has an opinion one way or another about whether it's "OK" for a child to play that game or whether the child has a "right" to play that game. But that's a decision that would remain up to the child's parents even if Blagojevich's proposals were to go through.

Am I missing something? Are 6-year-olds buying these games and playing them against their parents' wishes or without their parents' knowledge?

Or is the governor just freelance fantasizing, tossing pebbles at easy targets again instead of doing the hard work and making the tough decisions to bring state back to fiscal health?

There oughta be a law against that, too.

Take the click poll on this page: Should it be illegal to sell violent or sexually explicit video games to people under 18?

Currently, people who give vehicles and other items to charity can deduct the fair market value when they calculate their taxes. But after complaints that the system was being abused by charities that auctioned the cars for far less than what was claimed by car donors, Congress cracked down. Starting next year, the Internal Revenue Service will allow donors to deduct only the amount the charity receives for the sale of the vehicle if the price is more than $500.

In other words, as I read this, if you donate before Jan. 1, you can use a figure for "fair-market value" that is higher than the actual market value of your car --- lie on your tax form. .

I suppose this is an old tradition – grossly inflating the re-sale value of the crud you donate to charitable institutions – but it's odd to hear it celebrated and encouraged on commercials.

The Bernard Kerik scandal is getting worse and worse. Since Kerik withdrew from his Homeland Security Director nomination it has been revealed that he has had a secret marriage, two mistresses and worked for a mafia-related company. As a result Kerik has been given a role on "Desperate Housewives"

Conan O'Brien

Does anyone else find it faintly amusing that "The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie," which stars that blocky yellow icon of kids' television, has been kicking the skirted behind of the sword-and-sandals epic "Alexander"?

Four of my seven performances of the past four days were at the Old Town School of Folk Music with the cast of an annual sing-along organized by Chicago Tribune columnists Mary Schmich and Eric Zorn, a show called "Songs of Good Cheer."

I had rehearsed several times with this group and had been very impressed with the quality of their musicianship and their good humor.

The performances were, each in its own way, magic. We did an abbreviated family show, two full shows for adults, and one short one (Monday) morning for senior citizens. The proceeds went to the Tribune's seasonal charity.

Each audience was different, each performance unique, even though we repeated many of the same routines in all of them. Maybe the effect of the show on my outlook and mood could be explained by Mary Schmich's observation to the audience that "you can't be stressed out if you're singing."

Maybe it was a bit more than that.

The concert hall at the Old Town School seats four hundred people, and all of the shows but the one for seniors were sold out. It is a beautifully arranged space for performing music. There's not a bad seat in the place, and the audience is near enough that I could make out faces in the last row in the balcony.

When you get four hundred folks singing back at you, smiling at you, clapping with you, it becomes startlingly clear how great the gift of music is.

As our group displayed their many talents, and as people rose from the audience to tell funny, touching stories (Zorn and Schmich had held a contest, as they usually do), I relaxed and let the music and the warmth of our mutual efforts move the old holiday uneasiness out of my mind.

We did songs from several cultures, singing in Spanish, Hawaiian, and Ladino. We musicians offered our own idioms, bluegrass, jazz, and pop. There were several moments where we instrumentalists dropped out and all of us sang together without accompaniment, moments that ended in a joyous hush, full silent seconds before the applause broke out.

When it ended I felt more grateful than ever that I had been given the gift of music, that I had had a chance to be a part of this, that I could help share that gift. It was such a privilege to be there.

Anyway. Today, a large and impressive volume by Joseph Daleiden, a former Carter-administration official and Ameritech executive who told me "Liberals have criticized the book as too conservative; conservatives have criticized it as too liberal. One reviewer even said it was too balanced."

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 15, 2004

updated at 5:09 p.m.

COFFEE, TEA OR YAK?

Oh, great.

Breaking news today is that it apparently won't be long before airplanes will no longer be safe from what one of Mark Brown's readers dubbed "second-hand yak" --- that cacophony created by people talking too loud into their cell phones.

Many have attributed this to plain rudeness, but one of my readers, Ron Tevonian of Chicago, retired director of research and development at Bell Labs, wrote a while back to explain that it's not that at all:

When you speak to someone who is standing a few feet away from you, you use a moderate voice. But speak to the same person with your mouth right up against an ear and you instinctively whisper.

Now compare most miniaturized cell phones with an old fashioned desk phone. Without a mouthpiece directly in front of your lips, you instinctively feel the need to speak louder.

Next, consider your experiences with conventional desk phones (the kind which offer a mouthpiece close to your mouth). Blow into the mouth piece. Do you hear the sound in your ear? That is called "side tone."

Phones used to have that feature designed into them - to reassure the user that the phone was working, and to provide some feedback to the speaker to help throttle excessive volume.

Cell phones don't have "side tone" - so there is no clue to the user about whether they are speaking loudly, or not.

Tevonian has more thoughts on this problem as well as a three-part solution.

Aspiring columnists should take note of John Kass' column this morning on Bernard Kerik.

He takes a small but he believes telling detail about a current event--in this case an aside in some stories that Kerik wore a "jewel-encrusted badge," – and applies to it a strongly-held but seldom voiced personal opinion --- in this case, "Everybody knows you can't trust a guy who wears jewelry."

A notion like that perfectly fits the space of a column and is destined to spark conversations and arguments on the radio and in workplaces around the region.

They don't give prizes for this sort of manifestation of the column-writing art –- not consequential enough for the judges – but they should.

All John's effort lacked was an accompanying click poll, which I have thoughtfully created on this page along with a poll based on my own nearly daily experience which asks:

How many times a month do you call your own cell phone number in order to find the darn thing?

GOV. BLAGO-BUSINESS-AS-USUSAL

Les Winkeler of the Southern Illinoisan raises his eyebrows on the latest personnel moves within the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

"Remember, Kids – They're only strangers until you introduce yourself," and other Photoshopped "Public Harm" announcements.

Up to 100 grabby people at the same time can fight over the magnetic refrigerator letters on this site. (If at first you don't get in, refresh, refresh again.)

WHERE ALL THE TEAMS ARE BELOW AVERAGE

In response to my question yesterday, sports fans have written to nominate Atlanta and Minneapolis as more woebegone major-sports towns than Chicago.

Some have questioned my requirement that a city have an NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB franchise even to qualify and have challenged my "…in the last five years" limit as well.

I'm not enough of a stats cruncher to look much past the current/most-recent standings, in which I see that Chicago has worse teams than Atlanta and Minneapolis in very major sport except basketball, where the feeble Atlanta Hawks are slightly more feeble than the Bulls.

"A glance back at Chicago's charity institution, Cook County Hospital, in the 1950s. A provocative look at a venerable Chicago teaching hospital for the poor--an ill-equipped, sometimes corrupt system--providing a rare glimpse into the life of nurses, residents and surgeons struggling to care to the poorest sick despite meager conditions.

SORRY! THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

TUESDAY, DEC. 14, 2004

updated at 4:58 p.m.

FINE LINES

TOO BAD. HE SEEMS TO HAVE BEEN GOOD AT KEEPING SECRETS AND MULTITASKING.

Several years ago I wrote a column that used an odd device. Each sentence in the column contained 17 syllables only. The topic was a man who wrote sayings with 17 syllables. Now my son's high school math teacher has shown me this interesting site.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

ANSWER ME THESE QUESTIONS THREE

News that America Online is preparing to "abandon its strategy of exclusivity and free much of its music, sports and other programming to non-subscribers in hopes of boosting ad sales" prompts me to ask my fellow AOL subscribers this blunt question:

Why do you use AOL?

I'm not suggesting anything particular by this question. Though the Associated Press story quotes an industry analyst that "AOL is left looking like the race car in a race that nobody wants to run in anymore."

Next question:

Would jurors have recommended the death penalty for Scott Peterson if he'd been a better actor?

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- Repelled by Scott Peterson's seeming lack of sorrow and remorse, a jury decided Monday that he deserves to die for murdering his pregnant wife, Laci, almost two years ago.

But maybe I'm too touchy.

Last question:

Is Chicago now the most pathetic big-league sports town in America?

I suppose there are a number of ways you can slice this question to come up with an answer you like, but lets just take the last five years and look at metropolitan areas with major football, baseball, basketball and hockey franchises.

The Bulls, Bears and Hawks have been crummy, the Sox have been mediocre and the Cubs have under performed.

Consider final standings, league, division or world championships, average winning percentages playoff games won or some appropriate combination of factors.

Which city, if any, has it worse than we do?

CHEERS

Thanks to everyone who turned out this past weekend to Songs of Good Cheer, the caroling programs that Mary Schmich and I front for at the Old Town School of Folk Music.

To the sold-out crowds at all three shows who filled the auditorium with sound, to the professional musicians who joined us on stage. To Gail Tyler, Dan Glomski and other staff and volunteers from the school who handled all the details. To Alison Halstead from Tribune Holiday Giving who oversaw production of the songbooks and other elements of Tribune sponsorship.

The problem we're starting to have with this event is that it now sells out too quickly for us to flog it – and Tribune Holiday Giving – in our columns in the weeks leading up to it.

And flogging and milking is what we're all about during this most busy season.

Every time we talk about moving to a bigger venue we think how hard it would be to recreate the gorgeous intimacy of the Old Town School auditorium.

Anyway, portions of the event will be broadcast on WGN AM at 7 p.m. on Christmas Eve and again at 8 a.m. on Christmas morning. We also brought in a recording engineer this year to see if there are enough tracks available without my singing on them to make a good CD.

If so, you can count on me to flog and milk that mercilessly.

"THIS IS THE BEST NIGHT OF MY LIFE!"

We had a blackout for about an hour Monday evening on the Northwest Side.

So we ate dinner by the light of two candles and the menorah, after which the kids huddled around the table and began trying to do their homework.

Ben, who is 7, was giddy with the excitement and novelty of it all: "This is the best night of my life!" he declared.

At the time I was on the phone with our friend and neighbor Liz, checking on their power situation, and I relayed Ben's remark.

Her 6-year-old, Mike, had just said the exact same thing.

Both boys were heartily disappointed when the lights came back on a short time later.

Before he went to bed, Ben suggested that we have another blackout tomorrow night.

FINE LINES

The people who support (abstinence-only sex education) are right--abstinence is the only fail-safe way to prevent pregnancy and disease. But they are also living on another planet. Here on Earth, about 60 percent of high school seniors have had sex…

Yet some partisan critics, apparently unable to defend (Defense Secretary Donald) Rumsfeld, attacked (Chattanooga Times Free Press reporter Edward Lee) Pitts. "He created news in order to cover it," said conservative political commentator Rush Limbaugh. "... We found out the whole thing ... is a setup." Setup to do what? Tell the truth?

When you run for office promising over and over and over to end "business as usual," you need to be extra, super-duper, no-stone-unturned, squeaky, soapy, covered-in-lather clean. So far, he's missed a few spots.

JoLene Krawczak, the senior editor who oversees features sections, recently decided to drop "Dear Abby" to run "Ask Amy" every day. She argues the reporting quality of "Dear Abby" has declined, and "Ask Amy" is more fully reported, she says.

The Inmates are Running the Asylum argues that, despite appearances, business executives are simply not the ones in control of the high-tech industry. They have inadvertently put programmers and engineers in charge, leading to products and processes that waste huge amounts of money, squander customer loyalty, and erode competitive advantage.

SORRY! THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

My bid to become the Jesse Jackson of the Christmas Wars got a boost today when American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois executive director Colleen Connell agreed in principle to join in a summit next year with those who are fretting and complaining that Christmas needs to be saved from predatory civil libertarian atheists.

Connell thought my dig at the ACLU for its hesitation was a low blow, and made me promise to buy her a drink when these peace talks of mine go sour because the Christmas saver people really aren't interested in common ground.

She wants single-malt scotch. Hope she'll settle for egg nog.

Z-MAIL

Dan H., Geneva -- Can you make it so a new window opens when we click on a link in the text of your blog?

I can, but it's a huge pain for me right now given the way I do the html coding.

But I have a better idea: Switch to the Firefox browser that I've been so zealously promoting. It offers a way to read link-intensive pages that, once you try it, you'll never go back.

In Firefox, when you're on my site, reading with that feverish intensity that this blog inspires, and you come across a link to something you'd like to check out, you can open it for later reading without having to tear your eyes away.

You simply click on the link using the wheel on your wheel mouse (if don't have one, buy one. They're not expensive and very handy) and the page opens in a separate "tab" behind the page you're reading.

You can open many pages at once in new windows this way, and they will be ready to read with one click on the appropriate tab at the top of the screen the instant you are done with this page.

This is especially handy for headline-intensive sites like the Tribune front page, when going back and forth can be kind of a pain.

My easy-to-follow instructions on how to download and install Firefox are here.

Phil V. -- I was listening to WBBM-AM on the drive in a couple of days ago and they ran a self-promo that called WBBM "the only station to provide nonstop coverage of the LaSalle Bank fire." They weren't apologizing.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

IT SOCKS, THAT'S WHAT I THINK

In light of my objection to the proposal (since withdrawn) to open a Bad Ass Coffee Co. franchise in suburban Antioch, a reader wanted to know what I thought of the title of a star-studded movie premiering Dec. 22:

A strangely high percentage of the Focker/Fokkers listed in the Internet phone book go by the first name "Gaylord."

Make of that what you will.

ADVANTAGE: ACLU

Now this is more like it.

A group of those insufferable people who simply can't abide the fact that our Constitution encourages people to think for themselves in matters of personal morality and religion went to the Washington D.C. headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union Thursday to try to score points.

Their report, posted along with photographs, reads as follows (boldface added for emphasis):

A bunch of us went down to the ACLU Headquarters in Washington this afternoon to, umm, serenade them with Christmas carols.

None of that "Holiday music," either. These were actual Christmas carols, with words like "Christ Our Savior is Born."

The ACLU people were incredibly cool about the whole thing -- they set up a little table with cookies and coffee for us, and stayed downstairs and joined in the singing.

HOW SOON WE FORGET

Parents in Gurnee cheered Wednesday night when the school board voted to allow school bus drivers to play Christmas carols on the radio for their young passengers.

I argued yesterday that it's a bad idea because you really never know what music a bus driver might choose to expose the children to.

October 30, 1996 -- Federal safety officials on Tuesday finally brought a measure of closure to last year's fatal train-school bus crash in Fox River Grove….

A fast-moving Metra commuter train hit the rear fender of the bus, which extended over the tracks as driver Patricia Catencamp waited at a red light on Algonquin Road at U.S. Highway 14. Seven Cary-Grove High School students died in the Oct. 25, 1995, accident, and more than two dozen were injured….

(Among the causes:) Loud music was playing (on the radio) in Catencamp's vehicle, and she told investigators she did not hear the whistle of the approaching train.

(Chicago Tribune)

"I'M AN OLD MAN AND IT'S EARLY IN THE MORNING. I'M GATHERING MY THOUGHTS HERE "

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's cranky initial response to Spec. Thomas Wilson who asked him during a "town meeting" in Kuwait about inadequate armor on U.S. military vehicles sums up how I feel most mornings.

I plan to include it on the next customized coffee mug I order.

Speaking of custom mugs, we're giving them to the grandparents for Hannuka/Christmas this year.

With digital photos stored on the computer and online photo-gift ordering sites, it's astoundingly easy to have them made and shipped, and they're treasured like almost no other present.

And speaking of Spec. Wilson, his action reminded me of "Mack," the beleaguered terrapin at the bottom of the stack in Dr. Suess' classic allegory, "Yertle the Turtle."

For two years I feel like I've been speeding down a darkened road, blasting past all the Bridge Out signs. Today I saw orange-and-white sawhorses up ahead, blocking the road. They got closer and closer all morning long, but it's too late to swerve now, and too late to stop. I crashed through and kept going…

Also very moving are the concerned comments from her readers, many of whom don't know her personally.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

FOR REFERENCE

The message board on TV coverage of the LaSalle Bank Building fire will be archived

The topic was the controversy up in Gurnee in which a student complained because a school bus driver was playing Christmas carols on the bus radio.

The district initially told the bus driver to cut it out--don't play the radio at all – but last night the school board overruled administrators and OK'd the playing of radios on school buses.

Our story says, "The decision brought applause from audience members, who had packed the board room. Some began singing `We Wish You a Merry Christmas.'"

But of course the inevitable problem is that once you allow bus drivers to decide what sorts of music kids get to listen to on the way to school, you're at the whim of, well bus drivers.

Not to knock bus drivers. But you can't fight for the right of a Christian bus driver to play Christmas carols to the kiddies on the way to school without, then, fighting for the right of a Jewish bus driver to play sacred Jewish music or a Muslim bus driver to play sacred Islamic music or an atheist bus driver from slipping in a CD of Dan Barker's "Beware of Dogma."

Then some real-life Otto might choose to play his heavy metal station or his old Cheech and Chong cassette.

Point is, that when, in an effort to advance religion, you allow an exception to common-sense public policy (in this case, that school bus drivers should not play the radio for the kids), you open the door to the possible advancement of all sorts of things.

Barker is an atheist, a born-again atheist at that, having been a teenage evangelist and a successful Christian songwriter whose search for religious truth took him away from Jesus….

The 16-track CD includes satirical takes on popular songs, including "God-Less America" and "Why BSA?" (to the tune of "YMCA" by the Village People), which assails the Boy Scouts of America for excluding atheists and gays.

SORRY! THIS CD HAS BEEN CLAIMED.BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

Even if YOU don't know what faith you are, Belief-O-Matic™ knows. Answer 20 questions about your concept of God, the afterlife, human nature, and more, and Belief-O-Matic™ will tell you what religion (if any) you practice...or ought to consider practicing.

It happened when I set up the online debate on immigration policy last year, when Joshua Hoyt, the executive director of the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, was a real pill about agreeing to tangle on even ground with Dave Gorak, the executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration in Lombard.

Hoyt finally agreed, but I've been waiting since March for him to write his final installment.

It happened again, though to a lesser extent, when I set up the "live-birth" abortion debate between anti-abortion activist Jill Stanek and pro-abortion rights advocates. The Planned Parenthood of Illinois contributors to the debate were the most difficult to bring to the digital table.

And again, now, it's the ACLU that's balking at the idea I've been floating this week that a diverse group of advocates should gather before next December and hammer out a joint statement on what they all agree is appropriate for school and civil winter holiday observances.

I don't think it's a lack of confidence in their positions that prompts liberals to shy from engaging on the field of debate.

I think it's insularity tinged with – OK, I'll say it – arrogance.

As much as I respect and believe in the ACLU and its mission, I was somewhat dumbstruck yesterday when local leaders were telling me they don't think there's a problem out there; that Americans and public officials do understand what is and what isn't appropriate at the holidays.

Ask any talk radio host in America – the misunderstanding and ill-will on this subject is rampant.

Though Prof. Zorn will surely find this bit of news appalling, I think it's pretty funny: St. Bernard Catholic Church, not far from Lambeau Field where the Green Bay Packers play, has changed its Mass schedule for Christmas Eve. With the Packers at home against the Vikings in a rare Friday game at 2 p.m., St. Bernard's moved its 4 p.m. Mass to 6 p.m.

Hey, I'm thrilled to be mentioned in the competition. May they always spell my last name right!

But there's not a single line in my entire 24-year body of work at the Tribune that would lead anyone to think I would presume to care about when a church would schedule its services.

Maybe if the Sun-Times hired an actual local person to write the column, it would contain better zingers.

1. The use of "tehee" in the solution instead of the much more common "tee-hee" as a synonym for "snicker" is legit because, even though no one really spells it that way, it does appear in the dictionary.

Some respondents admitted that such variants and obscurities are not hallmarks of the puzzle writer's finest hour and that "tehee" is, to use a harsh pejorative among puzzle folk, "inelegant."

2. When a question mark is appended to a clue, it generally signals that a pun or odd bit of whimsy is involved. In this case "Hot flower?" works as a clue for the answer "lava" because lava is a hot thing that flows.

3. The fetish for symmetry is (some say) a mostly American thing and even though it does force the puzzle maker into such inelegancies as "tehee" more frequently than if he or she had fewer constraints, the overall effect of symmetry in puzzles creates a sort of meta-elegance.

I suppose.

And I really don't have a dog in this fight, as I seldom do the crossword puzzles myself.

But if I did, the ability of a puzzlemaker to make his puzzles absolutely symmetrical would not at all enhance my pleasure in doing his puzzles, as much as it might enhance his or her pleasure in crafting them.

And, darn it, it ought to be about me, the puzzle-doer, and not the puzzle-maker.

(MoveOn.org is) a network of aggrieved liberals, connected by the central nervous system of the Internet, and it enables its members to convince themselves they're "doing something" when they're really not.

Christmas carols and other kinds of music will again be played on a Gurnee-area school district's buses after a short-lived ban gave new meaning to the "Silent Night" season.

At a special meeting Wednesday night, the Woodland School District 50 board told Supt. Dennis Conti to allow radio music on the buses again. The decision brought applause from audience members, who had packed the board room. Some began singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

Conti said he was disappointed that the board did not support his ban, which he contended was a matter of safety, not Christmas music.

A collection of useful links related to what really is and isn't OK in public schools during the winter holiday season is here.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 8, 2004

updated at 1 p.m.

D'OH!

The State Journal-Register reports that the newly dedicated World War II memorial in Springfield contains an error "literally carved in stone."

A reference to the "Berma" campaign on the $1.5 million memorial will be changed to "Burma" in the spring, officials say.

BUT IN FACT…

The cliché has it that – "By mostly removing the issue from the democratic process, (the Roe v. Wade decision) created the current polarization over abortion, in which both parties are officially committed to extreme positions." (James Taranto, Wall Street Journal Online)

But in fact -- The abortion debate was and would have remained driven by absolutist positions. Anyone who has ever seriously debated this issue knows how silly the idea is that legislative compromise would ever lead to any sort of resolution or long-term peace.

The cliché has it that – "Our nation depends on immigrants to do the scutwork that Americans can't bring themselves to do." (Neil Steinberg, Chicago Sun-Times)

But in fact – As "Fear Factor" has proven, Americans will bob for cows' eyeballs in a vat of blood if the price is right. So the idea that immigrant laborers perform tasks that Americans simply refuse to perform is misleading.

The truth is that immigrants work for wages that Americans refuse to work for.

They're not filling a labor shortage, but a wage gap.

FINE LINES

Cultural salt lick

Rebecca Traister in Salon on "Sex and the City."

Even (football coach Ron) Zook's worst record in his three years at Florida -- 8-5, twice -- would be a major success at Illinois, where folks speak airily of a grand football tradition that doesn't actually exist.

One of the things I promised readers 478 days ago when I started this blog was to keep track of the number of days DuPage County State's Attorney Joe Birkett has dithered about Brian Dugan since his office announced he had conclusive DNA proof that Dugan raped murder victim Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville in 1983.

Indicting and trying Dugan will likely dredge up embarrassments for DuPage County authorities, men who long zealously pursued other suspects in the case and pooh-poohed Dugan's self-incriminating statements.

"Every time you call me, we're a little closer," Birkett said when I last checked in with him 287 days ago (2/25/04) to ask what was taking so darn long. He characterized the investigation as "aggressive."

OK. Today marks 754 days since Nov. 15, 2002 , when Birkett's office announced that Dugan's DNA matched DNA evidence found in Jeanine to a scientific certainty.

The same handy duration calculator on the Web allows me also to report that we've seen 602 days of gubernatorial inaction since April 16, 2003, when a plainly supportive Illinois Prisoner Review Board held a clemency hearing for Debra Gindorf.

Virtually every expert concedes that Gindorf was in the grips of post-partum psychosis when she killed her children in 1985, and not even the state's attorney whose office oversaw her prosecution, Mike Waller of Lake County, objects to Governor Blagojevich showing mercy at this stage and releasing her from prison.

But for 602 days, Blagojevich has stalled and demurred.

Birkett sent around a letter to state GOP bigwigs recently saying he's interested in running for a statewide post.

And most observers think Blagojevich has his eye on higher office as well.

Yet both seem to have an awful lot of trouble just doing their current jobs.

A gallery of gadgets, features, and cooking devices that appeared and, in some cases, disappeared during the creative cooking of the 1950s.

Accompanied by vibrant, original packaging and vintage advertisements, you'll marvel at the ingenuity of the minds that brought you the Weenie Wheel, Bean-X Bean Slicer, Cookie Gun, and much more.

SORRY! THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED.BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

The Army's published account not only withheld all evidence of fratricide, but also exaggerated Tillman's role and stripped his actions of their context….. Commanders also withheld the facts from Tillman's widow, his parents, national politicians and the public.

Tillman sounds like a fascinating man, from all accounts – an extremely thoughtful, well-read and iconoclastic person.

"He demanded straight talk about uncomfortable truths."

So here is a truth that's likely to make some people uncomfortable.

Pat Tillman did not believe in God.

"Pat isn't with God," said his younger brother Rich, addressing mourners at Tillman's funeral. "He's [expletive] dead. He wasn't religious. So thank you for your thoughts, but he's [expletive] dead."

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Gwen Knapp, one of only a handful of reporters who mentioned this, wrote:

What? This didn't happen for God, as well as country? A professional athlete turned soldier, and we're supposed to believe that he'd have no use for piety? Robbed of a cliché, where does that leave us?

It leaves us better aware than ever that there are atheists in foxholes. And everywhere else as well.

At the suggestion of readers I have removed "natural habitat" from the list of pleonasms and, at the suggestion of WBBM AM (780)'s Bernie Tafoya, have added Chicagoland area, which, as he points out, is like saying "Chicago-area area."

I was expecting to see a paragraph describing how Keller eventually took all of her notes and sat down at a computer and began to write the stories by interspersing direct quotations with her own narrative of the events to arrive at a rough draft, which she then sent to her editor for editing, after which she had a bagel and a cup of coffee before getting a revised copy of her story back from the editor, etc., etc.

Har.

As if any editor ever got back to a reporter that quickly.

But seriously. Such an explanatory note – similar to notes in major non-fiction books – allows the writer to free herself from having to throw in the narrative speed bumps that are journalistic attributions, and to write with muscular, novelistic vividness, like this:

It was a great black mass, a swirling coil some 200 yards wide at the ground--it was wider in the sky--heading northeast at about 30 m.p.h. They looked up and saw it but they thought: No. Couldn't be. Could it?

There was a wild beauty to it, a fiercely knotted loveliness that was like nothing they'd ever seen. They could see debris swirling in it, pulled in and out and sucked up and around, frenzied sticks of wood, trees, dirt, other things, everything.

The ones who watched it come, watched it fill more and more of the blue-green sky like the canvas of a finicky painter who decides to slather the whole thing in black and start over, felt almost hypnotized at first, rooted to the earth but looking up, up, up.

Instead of like this:

It was a great black mass, those who saw it said. A swirling coil that the National Weather Service later estimated was some 200 yards wide at the ground. It was wider in the sky, meteorologists said, heading northeast at about 30 m.p.h. Residents of Utica later said they looked up and saw it but they thought, "No. (It) couldn't be (true). Could it?"….

You get the idea.

Keller's series sweeps the reader along so powerfully because she was able to pack all those attributions, citations and explanations into that side-bar.

I hope it becomes a journalistic convention of its own and that we see a lot more work just like this.

Was there too much behind-the-scenes material?

Not for my tastes.

I'd love to hear more about how Keller reported this story, the relationships she built up in Utica, the hold over her that this storm obviously had.

If you haven't read it yet, go do so. It could keep me in "Fine Lines" entries for the next month.

The Sun-Times' political reporter in Washington seems determined to be the Lone Mainstream Journalist Who Sees Through Obama, but her efforts so far have a whiff of desperation:

Sen.-elect Barack Obama (D-Ill.) chartered an airplane and flew to Omaha, Neb., to lunch with billionaire Warren Buffett and his daughter Susan, who donated $1,000 to Obama last August. Obama would rather you not know about his meal with Buffett and his daughter.

She's wroth that the lunch wasn't on Obama's public schedule and accuses him of being "secretive," though these attacks lack context – Do any other public officials keep journalists abreast of their meal plans? Do all of them except that slippery devil, Barack Obama? --- and any hint that anything untoward is taking place.

All she's doing with such nattering is creating a credibility problem for herself down the line should she ever catch Obama doing something that does have the whiff of scandal.

How can you believe Lynn Sweet? She's been out to get him from jump street.

I'd never heard of J-Date until last night. Then, within the space of 15 minutes at Neil Steinberg's book-release party, two people, independently, told me of having recently found matrimonial bliss through this Internet matchmaking service for Jewish singles. (story )

In a sign of the times, though, I couldn't help but think of this new concept "buzz marketing" in which volunteer agents make it their mission to go out and spread the word about certain products. (story)
Did these stories come out of nowhere, or was I being buzzed?

From now on, it seems we'll never be sure anymore when friends and acquaintances drop brand names on us.

As an incorruptible journalist, I will be the last person you can truly trust.

And no, I wasn't crashing Steinberg's book party. I was invited.

Yes, he and I throw spitballs at each other in print, but I'm unable to take it personally and still enjoy both his company and his writing.

I'm looking forward to "Hatless Jack," his latest. It's a social history of headwear, and Steinberg pointed out to me that it's the first of his books that contains no first-person because he didn't want to "interfere with what I think is a great story."

The party was very swank – Richard Roeper and Bill Zwecker were the official hosts--and featured caterers in bowler hats serving appetizers that looked like little works of art.

I didn't see Bob Greene among all the swell people there, but I had to leave early so maybe he was able to drop by later for that conciliatory vodka gimlet Steinberg has promised him.

Groveling at the feet of the Tribune media empire he detests, Steinberg will be Milt Rosenberg's guest tonight on WGN AM (720) at 9 p.m.

It's brilliantly, grotesquely unconventional….(One respected researcher proposes that) we create functioning parts of an embryo without the whole….by turning off one of the genes that guide embryo formation….

The plan would be to follow the recipe for cloning…but turn off (the gene that directs the formation of the placenta). Then, once the cell begins to divide, reactivate the gene, too late to organize the embryo but early enough to make stem cells….The idea is so wild that (members of President's Council on Bioethics) who usually know where they stand on embryo issues aren't sure what to think.

In light of my column today on the efforts of the Alliance Defense Fund to "save Christmas," I've challenged that group as well as the ACLU of Illinois to sit down next October and generate a joint statement to be distributed to all public school districts in at least the six-county area outlining the substantial areas of agreement between the two sides as to what is appropriate at public school winter holiday assemblies.

It's more fun to fight, I know, but finding and publicizing the common ground here would be a great public service.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

A friend of this blog chides me for giving away free what may turn out to be valuable first editions of many books.

Choose the Blue tells consumers which political party various corporations supported and urges them to shop Democratic.

A New York Times op-ed waxes proud about Patrick Daley's enlistment in the Army and quotes me, though not by name.

The blog "Chicago Howtown on the Make" takes a look at the swollen Cook County budget and asks an Emperor's New Clothes-like question that's got to be quietly on many people's minds: For the love of God, what exactly do these people do?"

A cause that no one could be against -- disability pay for wounded veterans -- Check!

Action required by a non-Blago entity -- a demand that the V.A. craft a plan to address "this intolerable situation" -- Check!

A press release -- an open letter to the V.A. Secretary -- Check!

The win-win Blago-bonus -- A) Action by the V.A. means a moral victory for (Blagojevich), and B) inaction by the V.A. means (Blagojevich) stood up for Illinois military men and women, so no matter what, Rod Blagojevich is the champion of wounded soldiers -- Check!

FINE LINES

If the sky could hold a grudge, it would look the way the sky looked over northern Illinois that day. Low, gray clouds stretched to the edges in a thin veneer of menace.

Julia Keller in part one of her series on the tornado that smashed through downstate Utica.

As for a 715th home run to pass Ruth, much less a 756th to surpass Aaron, the thought of it is now almost too revolting to endure.

Thomas Boswell on Barry Bonds

WING NUT

Blogger Lance Mannion explains why his wife (whom he moronically refers to as "the blond") won't let him watch "The West Wing:"

I guess she thinks that because my reactions to the promos have included boos, catcalls, snorts of disgust and derision, and standing on my chair screaming at the TV in rage and disbelief at how stupid the show appears to have become, that I won't be able to sit quietly beside her and let her enjoy her favorite show.

But he persuasively catalogs the show's casting and plotting missteps over recent years.

Read this posting and it might ruin the show forever for you.

(And yes, I know the late, great Mike Royko used to refer to his wife as "the blond" and yes, I thought that was moronic, too.)

Johanna is particular about buying only the most natural of the Brownberry sandwich breads and has trained me to look for the name "Catherine Clark" on the label.

"Founder of Brownberry Bakers," the label says.

Or said.

When shopping recently I went looking for the name and couldn't find it until I turned the loaf over and found Ms. Clark listed in the boilerplate on the underside.

Who was she? Here is a portion of her May, 1986 obituary:

Catherine Clark, who started the multimillion-dollar Brownberry Ovens
bakery in a small store in Wisconsin 40 years ago, has died at the age of 79.

Mrs. Clark...started Brownberry
Ovens in 1946 at Oconomowoc, Wis., after she received a good response to the
bread she baked at home.

The native of Whitewater, Wis., began the business with two assistants
and often traveled to grocery stores, offering a taste to persuade the grocers
to buy her bread.

Brownberry Ovens grew to have two Midwestern plants and sales of more
than $16 million a year.

The company was purchased in 1973 by Peavey Co., a Minneapolis-based
agribusiness firm, but Mrs. Clark stayed on as board chairman until she
retired in 1979.

Now she's getting dissed.
Don Marquess, Vice President of marketing for George Weston Bakeries Inc., in Lombard, which owns the brand, responded to my e-mail query with this bland explanation:

We moved the name "Catherine Clark" to our back panel over a year ago. The move was made to allow the health benefits of our product to be shown to our consumers.

I don't think so. I'm a label watcher, and I think this just happened and that George Weston Bakeries is throwing Catherine Clark under the bus and hoping no one will notice.

REDUNDANCIES AGAIN

Former Trib colleague Jim Szantor adds and contributes these pleonasms to the list and roster:

Reason why

advance reservations

mix together

arson fire

pre-plan

NOW I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO THINK

Long ago, I assumed that Chicago was called "The Windy City" because it was particularly breezy here.

Then I learned that locals know the term was coined in the late 19th century and referred to what inveterate windbags our politicians are.

Recently, then, Ed "Cecil Adams" Zotti's "Straight Dope" column in the Reader cited the work of Barry Popik a "relentless word bloodhound" and noted that "the term was already being used in 1885 with reference to the city's lake breezes, and he's since found instances dating from as early as 1876."

This led me to the entry on this topic in the newly published "Encyclopedia of Chicago," and an archived "Straight Dope," both of which point to wind, not hot air, as the source of the nickname.

FREE TO A GOOD HOME

"And the Blood Cried Out – a prosecutor's spellbinding account of the power of DNA," by Harlan Levy.

SORRY! THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

I've become the subject of an e-mail campaign by the good folks at bookcrossing.com, who see some sort of convergence between this effort and their own and want me to publicize it.

What do they do? A Tribune feature in September, 2003 described it this way:

These devout readers, more than 100,000 strong, leave well-loved books in public places so that others may find them, read them and share with others.

A May, 2003 Tribune feature gave the nuts and bolts:

Members register the books scheduled for "release into the wild" on the Web site. They can then download preprinted labels, stick them on the book jacket and include on the label their BookCrossing member-assigned ID number.

When the book is found, the discoverer can go to the Web site to register the discovery. The "releasing" member is then notified by e-mail of the book's "recapture."

The concept, said BookCrossing co-founder Ron Hornbaker of Kansas City, Mo., is "to turn the whole world into a lending library."

THE THIRTY-SECOND FORWARD SKIP; AN UPDATE

Steve Johnson and I were noting in this blog last week that TiVo and Comcast Cable's DVR don't offer the marvelous, instantaneous 30-second forward advance.

Clever people wrote to us to explain how one can program one's TiVo and Comcast 6412 to do a 30-second skip.

For Comcast:

Press and hold SETUP until red LED blinks twice.

Enter 994. LED blinks twice.

Press SETUP once but don't hold it.

Enter 00173

Press LIVE key (or any other key you want for skip) LED blinks twice.

For TiVo:

Bring up any recorded program. (I believe you have to be watching a recorded program rather than "Live TV" in order to enable the feature.)

On your TiVo remote, key in the following sequence: SELECT PLAY SELECT 3-0 SELECT

If you've successfully entered the code, you should hear three "bings" in succession to let you know that you've successfully enabled the 30 second skip feature.

The skip-to-hash button on your remote will now skip forward 30 seconds during playback. ( The previous function of the skip to hash button --that is, jumping to the next "hash" mark on the playback progress bar at the bottom of the screen-- can still be accessed by first pressing fast forward or reverse.)

A great deal of my e-mail this week concerned my Tuesday blog entry and Thursday column pondering the "real reasons" Patrick Daley might be enlisting in the U.S. Army.

Daley, 29, the only surviving son of Mayor Richard M. Daley and the grandson of former mayor Richard J. Daley, gave an interview to the Sun-Times earlier this week saying it was simply love of country and desire to serve that inspired him.

I wondered if revising his rather unimpressive biography for political purposes wasn't also on his mind.

This got me the "how dare you?" treatment from a number of correspondents.

Their argument, to sum it up, is that when it comes to so noble an act, it's unseemly to question or analyze the motives.

When someone does something good and brave, they say, we should simply thank him and not ask or wonder why.

But I see no point, no advantage, no leg-up on reality, to looking at the world that way.

I'm fascinated by the question of why people do what they do, as well as the converse question of why people don't do what they don't do.

Human beings are not Vulcans, perfectly logical and rational. They are a roiling cauldron of ambitions, fears, desires, hopes, prejudices, instincts and impulses -- some good, some bad; some obvious, some hidden; some we're candid about, some we lie about.

Why otherwise sensibly cynical people would suddenly close their minds on the question of motive simply because the topic is military service is beyond me.

This young man is likely destined to play a significant role in our city's political future, he's giving an exclusive interview to a friendly columnist about the grand nobility of his next step in life, and most of this city's pundit class is declaring that we should take it at face value and say nothing other than, "thank you, Patrick."

But pondering his motives and his future in light of his past are not incompatible with tipping our hats to what he's embarking upon and expressing respect and gratitude.

MORE ABOUT `DOCTOR'

Mail also continues to be heavy on the question of whether we should call PhD's "doctor" outside of an academic setting.

I said no, and most of those who've written in to disagree contend that those with doctorate degrees have worked really, really hard for them and so deserve this show of respect and acknowledgement of their sacrifice.

I grew up in an academic family and so did my parents--the hours are long and the pay not what it should be given the level of accomplishment.

But a lot of people in this world work really hard and put in really long hours, and don't demand a title after they're all done. And their jobs often aren't as fascinating and stimulating as academic pursuits.

And hey, as one correspondent put it, if those with doctorate degrees want to be called "doctor," everyone with a master's degree ought to ask to be called "master."

And for the rest of us….hmm "Bachelor Zorn" might be an interesting title.

Why do I think it's generally OK to make an exception for medical doctors?

In many cases, as grumpy PhD's pointed out, it takes less time to get an MD than a PhD.

Because it's sometimes useful to know who is and isn't an MD, and to have that knowledge reinforced through conversation.

But in general, even MDs tend to sling their titles around a bit much for my tastes. In circumstances where you would otherwise refer to someone as "Mr. Jones" and he has an MD, "Dr. Jones" strikes me as appropriate.

But I find many doctors using the "Dr." in situations when they otherwise would not use "Mr.," and this very much rubs me the wrong way.

Thanks to everyone who's been writing in on this. I'm glad for the input and may even do a follow-up column on the topic.

I'm also grateful to the scores of Notebook readers who so far have weighed in with a range of thoughtful opinion on the to-link-or-not-to-link question.

FINE LINES

Turn your Ho-ho-ho's into Oh-oh-oh's!

One of the winners of blogger Leigh Anne Wilson's contest to come up with a new holiday slogan for her sex-toy shop in Lincoln Park.

At their best, (bloggers) resemble that small stockholder who ruins what was supposed to be a smooth stockholders meeting by pointing out that the company's top executives seem to have been making ungodly profits by putting asbestos in the products of the corporation's baby-food company in Latin America.

It's not Mr. Picasso Head and you can't print out or save the results, near as I can tell, but this site where you can create your own South Park character, complete with cartoon bleeding wounds, is a nice waste of time for your weekend.

THE BOYFRIEND'S BACK

After an extended hiatus, "The Boyfriend" returns to Debra Pickett's S-T column today.

I remain fascinated by her public campaign to shame this lad into marrying her, though nauseated, of course, by the way she refers to him.

Today she hints that marriage is an area in which she is "significantly more impatient" than The Boyfriend is, and quotes a friend lamenting "three years of your life waiting for (The Boyfriend) to commit."

I've noted that Neil Steinberg, recently, in apparent solidarity, has taken occasionally to referring to Edie as "the wife," lower case.

The station is part of Tribune Co., and program host Milt Rosenberg is a professor at the University of Chicago. Steinberg frequently expresses contempt for both Tribune company and professors, but, as we saw earlier today, he'll hop in the promotional sack with anyone.

SORRY! THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED.BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

But, at the same time, I understand that readers place a certain amount of trust in chicagotribune.com and in me; trust that they're not going to click idly on some link here and be assaulted by graphic images or descriptions of sexual, excretory or violent activity; nudity, racist jokes, medically disturbing photos and that sort of thing.

So where's the line?

Yesterday I had what I thought was a clever, snarky and useful idea:

Richard Roeper's two most recent columns in the Sun-Times were devoted to listing his readers' favorite Web sites.

But the Web version of those columns didn't contain working hyperlinks to those sites.

Duh.

So under the headline, " A FEW GOOD LINKS FROM YOUR WEB-SAVVY, USER-FRIENDLY CHICAGO NEWSPAPER," I made a link-intensive list of those sites and submitted it to the editors.

They balked at several of the sites which, if you explored them at all, led you to material that had, shall we say, very little redeeming value or literary merit.

I chose not to run a partial list – far less snark value in that, I thought, and merely an invitation for Neil Steinberg to trot out one of his favorite expressions and accuse the Trib of once again "dabbing the perfumed hankie" to its lips.

And I didn't fight the overall ruling. But I did point out that we seem to be making up the rules as we go along here, and that it's probably time that we come up with a sensible, easy-to-follow policy about what chicagotribune.com writers can and can't link directly to.

An editor suggested:

Why don't you propose one, then, as a starting point for discussion?

I'll be glad to, but first I'd like to ask the users – you – what you expect and would like to find in the way of off-site links at a Web site that bears the imprimatur of the Chicago Tribune.

Should we link directly only to material that maintains "family newspaper" standards?

If not – if you feel we should link to important, interesting, relevant and entertaining sites even if they have a few cuss words on them – would you like such links to be accompanied by content warnings? Always, or just in certain circumstances?

Are there any other safeguards or guidelines you feel would be appropriate or necessary? (I'm interested particularly in the views of those with children who have access to the computer).

For instance, we could offer the Web addresses of perhaps too-edgy sites, but, like the Roeper columns, present them in plain text, forcing readers to take several affirmative steps (select, copy, paste, go) in order to reach the destination.

Or we could have a one-click rule that mandates that any offensive content be at least two mouse clicks away from chicagotribune.com content.

You tell me.

This isn't a vote, by the way. Even I don't have a vote when policy decisions like this get made. But it helps all of us to hear from Web users whom we hope will visit us again and again and make us a daily destination, not just an occasional stopping point.

But, lo and behold, (Wednesday's) Steinberg column closes with the following announcement: Friday morning at 9:30, Neil Steinberg will discuss his new book, "Hatless Jack," on WBEZ-91.5 FM.

Steinberg is unencumbered by the sort of principle that would cause him to refuse an invitation to plug his book in a venue he finds contemptible – it's part of his charm, really, and I mean that.

If he worried about foolish consistency, he wouldn't shoot from the hip all the time in that vastly entertaining, damn-you-all-anyway fashion of his.

Just last week he extended a thorny olive branch to former columnist Bob Greene, whose work Steinberg had regularly eviscerated in the pages of the Reader and whose fall from grace at the Tribune he had mocked in the Sun-Times and on (non-public) radio.

Steinberg offered no direct apology to Greene – he never does that in print – but said "I like to think that people can change," meaning Greene, and said he'd buy him a "conciliatory vodka gimlet" should the Sun-Times take his advice and hire Greene.

In that same column, Steinberg conceded/boasted, "If ever there was a master of shamelessness, it's me."

What's with Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg and National Public Radio?

Today: "...those who, indoctrinated by the adult version of Disney cartoons, National Public Radio, are morally opposed to any foreign cuisine that isn't a corn tortilla baked on a hot stone."

April, 2003: "I'm not one of those lemon-faced NPR liberals..."

January, 2003: "There were perhaps 300 people at the rally, well salted with young green-fatigue anarchist types selling "The Daily Socialist" and gray-haired NPR radicals."

November, 1999: "There was a precise moment when my inarticulate dislike for National Public Radio crystallized into a fine gem of loathing. Some linguist was talking on and on about how English has taken over the world and will spell the end for other languages. "English has become the 'lingua franca' of the world," he said. The idiot interviewer made one of those `mmm-hmmm' purring noises, completely missing the irony of using an Italian phrase to argue for the dominance of English."

April, 1999: "... the sort of people who listen to National Public Radio: bespectacled, be-sweatered, well-scrubbed, comfortable and soft, as if they couldn't change a tire if their lives depended on it."

Additionally, Steinberg writes many of the unsigned editorials at the Sun-Times, where we've seen the following digs:

November, 2003: "What was the `appropriate' response to Sept. 11? What would NPR have done?"

December, 2001: "Zealotry is immune to evidence. The demand for proof--whether from the Arab world, from NPR liberals in America or from cafe communists in Europe--was not a sincere request for a persuasive link between the avowed terrorist and this particular attack "

September, 2001: "...the kind of anti-patriotism you hear on National Public Radio, the simplistic `My country, right or wrong' met with the equally extreme `My country--wrong.'"

Now I admit that I'm more highly attuned to such jabs since my wife works at the local NPR affiliate, but Steinberg, a friend of whose writing I'm an admirer, does seem to have a fixation on the network.

He's stuck on the old stereotype of NPR, which is now more balanced in its news and commentary offerings than most radio networks.

To know that, however, he would actually have to listen.

I sent the above to Steinberg for his response, and he sent back the following:

Sure, it looks like a lot of references to NPR, but you're aggregating them over, what, almost five years?

From both my column and the editorial page. I'm sure there are a lot of other loathed entities --Communist China, PETA, terrorists -- who got an equal or greater number of jabs.

My only complaint is that it is both unfair and unfounded for you to suggest that I am only criticizing NPR because I don't listen to it.

You don't know that. I listen to NPR as much as I can stand to, and always find its claims to have changed to be unsubstantiated.

That said, no hard feelings on my end. We all have wives, and I would go to bat for mine, too. It is indicative of the stand-up guy you are.

Books are being claimed rather quickly by loyal Notebook readers. Today's offering is my personal copy of Roald Dahl's "Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator," which I offered here several months ago in the context of how much I loathed the book.

This sequel to the classic "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" will make a perfect gift this season for someone you don't care for much.

SORRY! THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

THURSDAY, DEC. 2, 2004

updated at 10:37 a.m.

BLOGGING ON BLOGGING

For what it's worth, this story
tells us that "blog" was the "most requested online definition this year" at the online version of Merriam-Webster's 11th Collegiate Dictionary.

An online journal which produces fame without wealth for pajama-clad scribes, known as bloggers, who write so well they don't need editors and who survive by eating ramen noodles and Tang powder from a spoon.

Another lurch in this medium's movement toward mainstream legitimacy is the kick-off of a blog jointly written by University of Chicago's Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker and noted local author and 7th District U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner.

The Center for Excellence in Television Comedy reports that "The Daily Show" is 46 percent less funny than it was during the Democratic primaries, and a whopping 55 percent less funny than it was during the last month of the presidential contest. OK, I made those statistics up. It only seemed right -- fake stats for a fake news show

But the fans? What is wrong with them? They are idiots, being played for suckers by a bunch of millionaires who own ball teams. Because they happen to live in a certain area, they root for a certain team.

Never mind that the players usually don't live in the area and they would, for either a buck or a whim, go somewhere else. The fans for some reason identify so passionately with a team that they are willing to risk physical injury on its behalf. Freud, I am sure, had a term for such people: jerks.

I'm sure everybody ever associated with Notre Dame will tell you color had nothing to do with letting Willingham go, that it's totally a coincidence, which is like spitting in somebody's face and telling him it's a rain drop.

Also, "Confessions of a Cad," below, is still, unaccountably, unclaimed.SORRY! THIS BOOK HAS BEEN CLAIMED.

BOILERPLATE RULES: Most of the books I'm giving away to Notebook readers have been sent by generous publishers hoping for a mention which, I suppose, they will get when I mention that I'm giving the book away.

First person to e-mail me about any given book gets it. Put the title of the book in the subject line and include your mailing address (U.S. only). One book per household. Tribune company employees, family members, etc. not eligible. I won't keep on file or reuse your address, you have my word as a former Cub Scout.

WEDNESDAY, DEC. 1, 2004

updated at 11:52 a.m.

Correspondence with readers on the Patrick Daley story is here, lower on the page.

Word was all over the place early Tuesday that the machine-like Jennings was going down on his 75th show, just as, Ryan noted, "online rumormongers had long said Jennings' final episode was taped back in September."

For a while I was a daily watcher of the Jennings Juggernaut – he was fascinating and a bit icky as he laid waste his foes – but as soon as I learned approximately when he was going to lose, I tuned out. No drama.

"Jeopardy!" missed a great opportunity. Producers should have discarded their playbook and persuaded key affiliates to begin carrying each game featuring Jennings live, just like a sporting event.

Yes, the show is ordinarily taped months in advance and stations air it at various hours of the day, but this was not an ordinary champion and the chance to spark a genuine outbreak of "Jeopardy!" fever passed by.

ATTEMPT TO MILK

Trib TV critic Steve Johnson, currently spending the school year in Cambridge, Mass. and filing periodic dispatches for Tempo from there, forwarded to me a public relations pitch from an agency representing Mont Blanc pens that I, in turn, forward on to you:

Hi Steve,

From the first episode of ABC's "Desperate Housewives," the nation has been intrigued by Mary Alice's suicide followed by a clue - a handwritten note stating, "I know what you did. It makes me sick. I'm going to tell."

The characters and America didn't know what to think when the disturbing note was found in Mary Alice's things.

This past Sunday, it was discovered that the incriminating note was written by the pesky Mrs. Huber, who used a nondescript pen for such a déclassé message.

She could have at least done it style. As the saying somewhat goes, select your pen as you would your sword. Montblanc features quite a selection of styles, from old world fountain pens to the modern mechanics of a fineliner tip and everything in between.

Unless you live out in the middle of a field, we are often subject to the peccadilloes of our neighbors - perhaps not as dramatic as found on Wisteria Lane each week, but disturbing nonetheless (loud music, barking dogs, early morning lawn mowing).

Confrontations about said behaviors can lead to nasty arguments, tones in an email can often be misconstrued (not to mention traced). A hand written note slipped under the door or anonymously placed in the mailbox speaks volumes without a difficult confrontation.

Let me know if you would like to speak Jan-Patrick Schmitz, President & CEO of Montblanc North America about handwritten notes, pens and how to deliver a clear message when you don't know what to say. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

He converted me to the technology two years ago and I now try to convert others with a dreary missionary zeal. Here's our e-exchange, edited to remove typos, profanity, libel and in-jokes.

To Steve --

Two issues of great interest to me that you didn't touch on in your wonderful story today have to do with the 30-second skip-forward feature that I love more than life itself.

As you may know, the Dish PVR we have offers a one-touch 30-second advance that allows us to hopscotch through even long commercial breaks in just a couple of seconds. I seem to recall your Replay TV box had the same feature, and that TiVo does not because advertisers don't like it.

One, what's the future of this feature?

And two, why in name of all that is holy do the interests of advertisers trump the desires of customers when it comes to features on an electronic device that is ostensibly designed, engineered and sold by an independent company?

Why should advertisers have any say at all in whether a 30-second skip feature is included? Why would TiVo not want to make the most user friendly device it can make? How many different ways can I ask this question?

To Eric --

Yes, although I didn't get into it, the 30-second-skip was another key reason for me rating Dish the best.

Replay had it, although I think I've read that they caved in and removed it on later models. Comcast does not. TiVo does not.

TiVo needs to make advertisers happy in order to try to grow a second revenue stream, other than just subscriptions. That's more important to them than fighting for a feature whose importance doesn't become obvious until you actually have the box installed.

And now, to add insult, they're sticking in pop-up ads that appear when you try to fast forward. It may gain them some ad dollars, but I think that'll be balanced out, or worse, by the cost to them in loyalty.

I have read that you can go to PVR forums and find ways to program your own 30-second skip, but haven't tested it.

I think the future for the feature, nonetheless, is good, as long as the universe of DVR makers remains diverse. It's such an obvious one, and not having it is like putting a gas-pedal-limiter on a Ferrari.

Though I will say, having lived with the FF button now, that you get pretty good at just whizzing through, sort of like adapting to those thumb-point mice in laptops.

This recent Associated Press story offers a similar and unconvicing explanation:

"TiVo has to become more advertising-friendly because, at the end of the day, TV runs on advertising dollars and companies that are part of that food chain have to acknowledge that," said Tim Maleeny, director of strategy at Publicis & Hal Riney, a San Francisco-based advertising firm.

A FEW GOOD LINKS

If my critical bile has you on edge, try reading this feel-good blog entry about the persistent kindness of a CTA bus driver.

The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) explains here why you should view ABC-TV's "20/20" gloss on the murder of Matthew Shepard ( it was a drug crime, not a hate crime ) as bogus.

Ex-gay Watch keeps track of the efforts of those who are selling the idea that homosexuals can change to heterosexuals if they work at it hard enough.

After an hour and a half of gimlet-sharp conversation he shows little sign of dulling. Maybe he doesn't join the visitor in a morning martini the way he once did, but the Scotch is proffered as usual, and is refilled promptly.

The gleam in Terkel's eye is undimmed by misfortune too. The humour and the storytelling flow as naturally as ever.

His fall, he says, "was a wild jazzy tumble, choreographed more by Bob Fosse than by George Balanchine...."

Anecdotes and flourishes seem to gatecrash the party from all directions. But, rather like the fluid and fantastic architecture of Antoni Gaudi, there is an underlying structure that is rock solid.

Just when you think that the years may be taking their toll and that he may be wandering off the point, he brings you unerringly back to it.

Bernard Schoenberg of the State Journal-Register reflects here on the excess of gubernatorial bodyguards and coatholders:

In the spring of 2002 that Blagojevich made a campaign issue of Paul Vallas, who was a top rival for the Democratic nomination for governor and then-CEO of the Chicago Public Schools system, having "chauffeur-driven limousines," which really meant drivers. The issue was included in some Blagojevich speeches, debates and campaign ads.

Terry McDermott of the Los Angeles Times here
tells of his maddening battle with computer spyware and how AumHa.org finally saved him.

"Political Animal" blogger Kevin Drum riffs off McDermott's story and here tells how he tries to keep spyware at bay: AdAware,SpyBot, a-squared, and, finally, the installation of the Notebook-recommended Firefox browser.

The best – in fact only – article I've ever read on food phobias, why we like and dislike certain dishes – is food phobias is this essay in Slate by Jeffrey Steingarten, the
food critic of Vogue:

People
should be ashamed of the irrational food phobias that keep them from sharing
food with each other. Instead, they have become proud and arrogant and
aggressively misinformed. But not me. When I donned the heavy mantle of food
critic, I sketched out a six-step program to rid myself of all puissant and
crippling likes and dislikes.

Ever call "Shotgun!" to get dibs on the front passenger seat in a car? Well, it seems there are rules to this game -- 4,500 words' worth of rules. Read `em here.

Paul F. -- I have to take issue with you. Sure those are all good points and good questions to raise, if and when he does go into politics. But he is not running for office, he's more likely running away from something by enlisting in the Army.

I'm more inclined to give the guy a break and wonder why he would sign up for the Army,, of all things, than I am to criticize him right now.

I suspect there's a variety of reasons anyone signs up for military service, and without any inside information I'd never presume to say for sure what might be motivating anyone to do that or, well, anything else.

We heard a lot of whispering, remember, that Republican investment banker Jack Ryan went to teach at Hales Franciscan, an inner-city parochial high school, in order to polish his political resume.

He did go on to run for the U.S. Senate, and he played the "selfless teacher" card in his ads.

But it seems possible (likely, even, given that he reportedly went back to back to the school after dropping out of the race) that political considerations weren't by any means the only factor or even the largest factor in his decision.

Shannon L. -- I am disgusted with you and your nasty, mean-spirited article.

There is absolutely no journalistic merit in raising questions about this young man's desire to join the military.

Yet because his father is a politician, you feel this makes him a target. How unfair. He is not a politician and therefore, the public has no business knowing the details of his private life.

Do you really think that in order to make people "forget" about stupid and meaningless incidents in his past, someone would risk his life by joining the military, especially when doing so virtually assures him a tour in Iraq? This logic doesn't even make sense.

Finally, who are you to assume that he's going to enter into politics just because his family members have done so?

If anything, and especially after hate-filled articles like yours, I would guess he'd get as far away from politics as possible. Maybe that's the reason why he joined the military!

Or, perhaps he just wanted to do a good thing with his life and serve his country….but what cynic would ever think of that?

Rick W. -- Are you upset because Patrick Daley backed President Bush in the election? You really have a lot of nerve questioning this decision.

Were you ready for West Point at 18? Now you're saying that he is willing to risk his life in Iraq for a chance in politics? I think you're confusing him with your hero, John Kerry.

The fact is, to continue with my Jack Ryan point above, that certain acts do ultimately help write or rewrite a political biography, whether the budding or aspiring politician is motivated by that fact or not.

Is Patrick Daley a budding or aspiring politician? It's a fair speculation, given his bloodlines.

And look, the guy gave an exclusive interview on this to the columnist in town most likely to write a big, puffy valentine on the front page of the paper about it.

And it's fairly unusual for a 29-year-old man with a new business degree to enlist in the Army.

It may be cynical to consider the political implications and possible motives, but it's naïve not to.

And the story of this town is the triumph of the cynical over the naïve.

Tom McC. – It is unclear to me
how participation in a still-unjustified travesty of a war will provide
Patrick Daley with a "clean slate," as you put it.

However well-meaning the motives of most enlistees, their mission (to
protect the American people) is not served in Iraq, which poses no real
threat to the American people, according to virtually all experts - our
President's inconsistent statements notwithstanding.

Sorry, it bears
repeating: Iraq had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, and Iraq was
not developing "weapons of mass destruction."

Better that Patrick would join the Chicago police force (with which he
has life experience), who truly serve and protect, rather than join up
with the proven morally vacuous military engagement in Iraq, where far
too many Americans and innocent Iraqis are dying every day in the true
cause of political and economic conquest.

But for Patrick, who has an MBA as President Bush does, perhaps political and
economic conquest is what it's all about . . . including no-bid
government contracts which we all pay for.

It's an honorable thing to sign up to serve in the military, whether or not you or those who observe you agree with the decisions of the commander in chief.

It would be wrong to impute to Patrick Daley any endorsement of a specific engagement or military effort beyond what he told Sneed: "I have friends in Iraq and Afghanistan. They tell me it isn't as bad as you read in the press, that much in those countries is working and that we are making progress."

S.I. P. -- I'm not saying that you're wrong about young Mr. Daley, and I think you voicing it is terrific, because you're only saying out loud what others are thinking.

But it's beyond my comprehension that this is being done to put a notch on a resume for public office. I just can't see public office being that important.

But, if it is that important to Mr. Daley, and he's willing to risk his life in order to get this on his resume..more power to him. There's not much that I'd be willing to possibly sacrifice life and limb for.

Keep up the good work, and continue bringing us your funny, insightful, but sometimes infuriating observations.

Oh, I will, thanks.

And, again, I'm looking at the likely outcome here, not presuming to know Patrick Daley's heart or his head.

And certainly, I'll say again, there's little evidence to suggest that the children of powerful Illinois politicians need to make grand, selfless gestures and achieve great things on their own before running for high office.

Still, it's interesting to me that in many other circumstances, observers of the social and political scene are eager to ascribe motives to all manner of actions by high profile people.

Yet when it comes to the choice of military service, so many take an approach that is both credulous and hands off.

Now a few of the many, many letters that have poured in concerning the social use of the title "Dr.":

Michael. B. -- I must have missed your past columns harrumphing that it is inappropriate and "fawning" to refer to Martin Luther King Jr. as "Dr. King," or Madeleine Albright as "Dr. Albright," and so on.

Actually, I'm not a big fan of using "Dr." as a title for anyone, but you'd look a lot less petty if you acknowledged that this is a game played on both sides of the political divide. (And I will acknowledge that perhaps it started on the right, with Henry Kissinger.)

Several correspondents accused me of Rice bashing, which really wasn't my point at all. I've never heard Rice call herself "Dr. Rice" outside of an academic setting; my quibble started when I heard reporter Cheryl Burton of WLS-Ch. 7 using the title for Rice about 30 times during one report one evening.

Ezra Getzler, Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern University -- Excuse me for my pique, but doctors of a university (and certainly former
provosts of the leading universities in the country), have, by custom, far more right to employ the title "doctor" than a graduate of a medical
school.

A medical degree, while it is taken after a bachelor's degree, is
really more equivalent to a master's degree by coursework in the arts and
sciences, since it requires no thesis.

The MD takes three years of study, while the doctorate in arts or sciences
(usually a Ph.D. or D.Phil.), takes between five and eight, often additional to a
master's degree; and energy and relationship sapping, poverty-stricken
years at that.

Writing a thesis suitable for publication in a top journal
or by an academic publisher is no mean thing.

Fawning? No, simply convention - the same convention that grants honorific
titles to a broad array of others in our society.

Why, exactly, has the
Chicago Tribune decided to withdraw this small sign of respect for the
best educated, and some of the most thoughtful, members of our society?

It's not just the Tribune that has decided that the term "doctor" is best understood and therefore best applied to MDs, it's every journalism style book I know and convention, as you put it, outside of the academy.

We live in a society that, for the most part, rebels against social titles – it's part of the veneer of classlessness and egalitarianism that we try to maintain.

American convention says that you don't get to have a title that's meant to remind everyone constantly in non-work settings how long you labored for your sheepskin or how much more educated and thoughtful you are presumed to be.

Sure you worked hard and it's a long, difficult slog to get a Ph.D. A lot of people in business, sports, the arts… even journalism…put in many tough years and achieve quite a bit as well.

They deserve respect, too. And rather than give everyone a title, we generally--outside of the realms of elected office and the judiciary – shun titles and let folks earn their respect day in and day out.

Using "Dr." with MDs serves a useful purpose – it can pay off to know who is a physician in times of crisis.

But, that said, I'm opposed to the way many medical doctors throw their title around in settings where it's clearly irrelevant--- in cranky e-mails to me, for instance, where no one ever signs his name "Mr. Joe Smith," for example, yet physicians are unable to resist signing their notes "Dr. Joe Smith."

Because I am a doctor, my opinion ought to carry more weight with you….

Sorry.

Leslie K.-- In my experience, the majority of the people who say Ph.D.s should not call themselves "Dr." do not hold doctorates themselves, and academics tend to be about evenly divided on the issue.

At the University of Pennsylvania, where I earned my doctorate, the title was used routinely. However, a scholar friend says that when he was at Harvard, the title was considered infra dig. I like to think that Penn is a "high-prestige" school, though I'm sure many Harvard graduates would not agree.

I am fairly neutral on the subject, though I've used the title in certain specific situations. I don't object to its use by others, in part because it wasn't invented solely for physicians.

Derived from the Latin doctus, for "learned," this title was first applied in medieval Europe to those who had earned advanced degrees in such fields as theology, civil and canon law, and the arts as well as medicine.

Europeans still use it in this manner. In Italy, for example, I am addressed as Dottoressa -- nient'altro -- though my degree is in art history, not medicine.

But here's a question for you: Why is it that I've never heard anyone object to the use of the title "Dr." by psychologists, whose degree is a Ph.D., not an M.D.? Or by scientists? In the fields of education and religion, the title is also quite common.

The Presbyterian minister who christened me, a doctor of divinity, was never addressed as anything other than "Dr. Patterson," and my elementary school principal was always "Dr. Ater."

What is your explanation for this rather puzzling inconsistency?

S. W. -- I have friends with J.D.s, and Ph.Ds in all manner of fields from some very highly regarded institutions who are technically "doctors" but who would never consider using the term.

Why is it then that every superintendent and grade school principal seems to use it? And is visibly annoyed if others don't?

True enough, lawyers never go by "doctor" even though they hold doctorates and psychologists, because they treat patients, seem particularly fond of the title.

Paula Kamen's essay in Salon about her good friend and our former Tribune colleague is well worth the read:

I was definitely a firm convert to the Iris Code -- to the point of spreading the gospel. When I occasionally went to universities to speak on my books, and then was a guest at writing classes, I would lecture students to "Iris Chang" it. She had become a verb to me. An action verb.

"Just think big!" I told them. "That's half the battle! What do you have to lose? If someone turns you down, they turn you down, so what? And then you move on. Just get a sense of entitlement, will you? It doesn't matter if you're in the Midwest. Or if you're at a public school. Just decide what you want and go get it. To the point of being naive.

"Your voice is not your voice. It's the voice of your generation! Just Iris Chang it!" I explained, almost taking on her passionate tone as I spoke.

MORE AND MORE PLEONASMS AND REDUNDANCIES

Yesterday I responded to a reader's critical response to my use of the term "hot water heater" with a list of internally redundant expressions gleaned from the Web.

Clever readers have sent in many more:

advance warning

at this point in time

basic fundamentals

closed fist

component parts

enter into

falling down

inner core

very unique

true fact

bunny rabbit, kitty cat, puppy dog and little baby

pizza pie

revert back

Scotch whisky

SALT talks

tiny bit

general consensus

whether or not

Xerox copy

all inclusive

bare naked

brief moment

FINE LINES

The Ukraine has now declared a winner in their presidential election, but the European Union says it is not legitimate. The give away was when the winner Viktor Yushchenko thanked his brother, Jeb Yushchenko.

About "Change of Subject."

"Change of Subject" by Chicago Tribune op-ed columnist Eric Zorn contains observations, reports, tips, referrals and tirades, though not necessarily in that order. Links will tend to expire, so seize the day. For an archive of Zorn's latest Tribune columns click here. An explanation of the title of this blog is here. If you have other questions, suggestions or comments, send e-mail to ericzorn at gmail.com.
More about Eric Zorn

Contributing editor Jessica Reynolds is a 2012 graduate of Loyola University Chicago and is the coordinator of the Tribune's editorial board. She can be reached at jreynolds at tribune.com.